Jazz At The Plaza by Miles Davis Sextet

The 2001 CD release of this 1958 live recording bills itself as “the greatest jazz party ever thrown!” And maybe so. Music aside, just gaze at the album cover. Illustrated is the famous Plaza Hotel, a perfect microcosm of the jazz epicenter that is New York City. And above that are names like Miles Davis, Cannonball Adderley, John Coltrane, Jimmy Cobb, Paul Chambers, Bill Evans….a serious jazz fan will understand the significance. It’s the famous Miles Davis Sextet who, one year later, would be the main supporting cast contributing to Miles’s famous Kind of Blue album.

Still, you wouldn’t think that the “greatest jazz party ever thrown” at one of the best hotels in the city would have occurred at 5:00 pm. It was a celebration party for Columbia Records. Not exactly a great launching pad for freewheeling looseness. Perhaps that is why there is a little bit of a safe, stale quality to the performance. And if it doesn’t quite deliver the promise of Kind of Blue, it nevertheless represents some of the greatest musicians of all time doing what they do best. The results underscore Davis’s reputation which he had recently cultivated on classic records such as Cookin’, Bags Groove and Relaxin’.

So, greatest jazz party ever thrown might be a bit of an overstatement. Jazz At The Plaza can’t quite have the reputation of a Jazz at Massey Hall or Charlie Parker at Carnegie Hall. However, it might not be an overstatement after all! And that is because this same evening, Duke Ellington played a set with his group. And in totality that means for one special evening. And just great music. Any attendee declaring this as the greatest jazz party ever thrown will receive no argument from me. Enjoy!

This Here is Bobby Timmons

Released in January 1960, This Here is Bobby Timmons narrowly missed joining albums like Kind of Blue, Mingus Ah Um, Time Out and Shape of Jazz To Come in the historic canon of Jazz in 1959. Now truthfully it wasn’t so much a classic in 1960 either and Bobby Timmons would never truly reach legend status. But, he was a soul jazz pioneer and if soul jazz, was never quite a cerebral enough genre for the critics, Timmons was always a well respected pianist amongst both jazz writers and fans. Classic or not, This Here was a very anticipated album that offered a lot of promise for Timmons profile — promise that the 25 year old pianist would sadly never totally fulfill.

But, Timmons, who had been active since the mid 50s, earned an album title like This Here in the classic year of 1959. As member of Art Blakey’s Jazz Messengers, Timmons wrote the album Moanin’s self-titled hit in 1958 and released it in January ‘59. It became an instant-standard and was in the repertoire of many artists almost immediately. Perhaps more impressive fortunates came in San Francisco that October, when Cannonball Adderley Quintet recorded at the Jazz Workshop and released his landmark live album before the turn of the year. The album was fantastic, essential jazz. But it was also a pioneering live record. A technical innovation in live recording. And it opened with Cannonball Adderley’s famous banter introducing Timmons by name, attributing him as the writer of track 1, the now famous “This Here.”

And this here is why This Here’s album cover highlights Timmons as pianist-composer of “This Here” “Moanin’” and “Dat Dere.” “Dat Dere” wasn’t a hit yet, but it would be. In fact, all of the aforementioned songs became either jazz standards or minor pop hits. Lyrics were added and vocal versions were created, making them more palatable to more refined jazz audiences. Lambert, Hendricks and Ross, the legendary vocal trio, famously recorded versions of “Moanin’” and “This Here.” The jazz-obsessed might know Sheila' Jordan’s vocal version of “Dat Dere” but everyone knows Tony Bennett, and he recorded it too in his latter day career. Not even Dave Brubeck had that type of resume outside of “Take Five” — a song his sax player wrote. Timmons was a major composer. And although he didn’t write all the songs on This Here is Bobby Timmons, his rendition of a classic like “Lush Life” is truly beautiful. And in either case, it is worth listening for his 3 original classics alone.

Timmons will never be a name like Miles Davis or Charles Mingus. But that’s fine. This is 100% essential, totally enjoyable, simple, to-the-point jazz music.

And how soulful it is. Thanks, Bobby.

Inside Pop: The Rock Revolution

Finding myself in a youtube rabbit hole, I discovered this 1967 special with Leonard Bernstein -- "Inside Pop: The Rock Revolution" -- who argued the merits of Pop/Rock music to older people who found the music to be uncompelling, unsophisticated and plain 'ol wrong. As many of you know, Bernstein is one of the most important and very rightfully celebrated American classical composers of the 20th century with a resumé that includes not only making the music for west side story and various other movies and symphonies, but also being the longtime music director of New York Philharmonic. Crazy talented visionary.

This TV special was fascinating and I highly suggest you watch! Bernstein was introduced to a lot of rock music from his kids and though he found much of it trite, he viewed some of it as genius a la Gershwin, Duke Ellington and even Mozart. In this special, he plays and analyzes songs by some of his favorites: The Beatles, Left Bank, 15 year old Janis Ian, The Monkees, Bob Dylan, Paul Simon and more and breaks down individual musical components in order to explain why this music was not just palatable, but groundbreaking and very sophisticated art. He also examines rock lyrics, putting forth a then foreign notion that these songwriters were not only making great music, but bonafide poetry -- and maybe even something bigger than that.

It's easy, at age 31, to take for granted that rock 'n roll used to just be thought of as "kid's music." It was folks like Bernstein and Aaron Copland, among others, who held the hand of older generations and helped demystify the magic. It's all stuff I find very interesting -- even moving -- and I hope you feel the same way!